Primary Care Population Medicine

As a PLME student studying public health, Nicole Comella knew she wanted her career to include health care systematics research and longitudinal patient relationships. Applying for the PC-PM program was an obvious next step.

“I thought it would be amazing to continue that in med school and, luckily, I did,” Comella says.

Comella says she excelled in the LIC, particularly due to its open structure. The combination of one-on-one interactions with physicians along with guidance from the LIC fellows created an experience that she treasured. Through each rotation, Comella says the fellows offered plenty of formal mentorship and provided positive content reviews for OSCEs (objective structured clinical examinations).

But it was the informal mentorship that made an impression on Cornella—small things like text messages or face-to-face check-ins to make sure she wasn’t feeling overwhelmed. It was part of what inspired her to become a fellow.

“The fellows really set us up for success in our fourth year,” she says.

While she thrived in the LIC’s flexibility, Comella understood that the open-ended structure might be daunting to some students. She wanted to empower students to advocate for themselves by exploring learning opportunities and specialties outside of their comfort zone.

“One of the things I passed on was how to use the flexibility to their advantage,” Comella says. “That could mean doing things like shadowing a certain subspecialty you don’t usually see, or following one of your attendings to a different clinic, and those are all things you can do as part of the LIC.”

Being a fellow reinforced Comella’s enjoyment of mentorship, she adds: “I’m really excited to do so as a resident and, in the future, as an attending physician.”